Page 25 of The Prodigy 2: Rise of a Queen

My first instinct was to run and never look back. But I knew that was coward shit, and my daddy didn’t raise no coward.

“I should shoot your fucking dick off, you piece of shit! How dare you? How dare you? I fucking hate you!”

She was unhinged.

“I love you but I fucking hate you! How could you do this to me?”

I was confused as fuck. Overloaded on all the shit around me. Couldn’t think straight. So I took another step and bent down to see about my pops. He was looking at me, but it was like he couldn’t really see me.

“Mama. Put the gun down,” I said to her. “Please.”

I touched my father’s shoulder, and his eyes rolled. “Daddy, stay with me.”

He didn’t say anything. It was more like a groan. He was in pain, but he managed to raise his arm and point. I followed the trajectory of his bloody fingers and turned my head to look in that direction. That’s when I saw…it.

Somebody else was on the floor, and they weren’t moving.

My mama lowered the gun, but her tears continued. “Look what you made me do! Why? Why, Lester?”

“Mama…what the fuck?”

She sank to her knees like she was melting. The gun hit the hardwood floor with a thud. Her head dropped as she sobbed quietly. My daddy stopped groaning, and it scared me. I thought he was dead.

“Kari,” he whispered. “Help…help her.”

I thought he was talking about my mama until he pointed again, using what seemed like all his strength.

“Mama, call an ambulance!”

“Wait.” My daddy struggled to sit up, but I held him in place. “Get her outta here.”

So that body on the floor was a woman. I couldn’t tell because the face was a bloody mess.

“Where?”

Mama stood and walked over to us, kneeling beside my daddy. He stared into her eyes, and the crazy thing about it was that he looked at her with love, like she hadn’t just shot him full of hot ones.

She smiled and put a hand on his cheek, and I couldn’t fucking believe what I was looking at. And then, after their little moment in the sun or whatever, they both looked at me.

“We’re gonna say it was a robbery,” Mama said slowly. “Make a mess, take some shit, and then take the gun and that bitch and dump ‘em somewhere.”

On autopilot, I nodded.

“Do it quick so I can get him some help.”

That lit a fire under me. I had my marching orders, and I needed to do it fast before my daddy died. It was all on me, and that shit was heavy.

I kissed his forehead, my dry lips stinging from the salt in his sweat. Then, I turned away to do what needed to be done.

I tore through the house, tossing shit left and right. I made it up to my parents’ bedroom and grabbed my daddy’s Rolex off the dresser. In the closet, I grabbed some jewelry and a stack of cash and threw it all in my mama’s Chanel bag. That was gonna have to be good enough.

I couldn’t let my daddy die.

With the bag slung around my neck, I ran downstairs and out the front door, turning off the porch light on my way. I threw the bag in the trunk, then backed up to the front door.

Coming back into the house was hard for me, because I knew what they needed me to do and I’d never done no shit like that before. I made sure not to step in the blood around the body. And there was a lot.

I found it hard to look at her, which made me feel even worse. I was supposed to be a G. I was supposed to not feel shit. Ice in my veins. But that wasn’t how I felt at all. I just felt sick. And weak.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a plastic grocery bag from the cabinet. Without looking at her mangled face, I slipped the bag over her head and tied my belt around it at the neck. With that done, I dragged her—dead bodies are way heavier—to the door and used all my strength to hoist her into the trunk. My mama was on the phone with 911 when I ran back in to say bye to my pops. He was losing color now. I was losing my mind. But I kept my shit together, squeezed his hand, and said my goodbyes.

“Knight, you gotta go! They’re coming!”

I didn’t say shit to her. I just grabbed the gun and left, speeding away from the house.

And into a nightmare.

---